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From: William Reaves
Subject: The Use of the Name Narvi: An Investigation concerning Mimir & Urd Part 1
To: ASATRU@home.ease.lsoft.com
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Here is the investigation of the use of the name Narvi, as promised. Please
feel free to comment on the ideas presented. Frankly, I am not concerned
with the argument of why Viktor Rydberg's ideas have not been accepted
after over 100 years. The fact is they are not, but one must also remember
that they are also largely unknown today. Being unpopular does not make a
man incorrect. I only mention this because of the nature of some of the
responses I have receieved when discussing VR in the past. Look at the
ideas, refer to the texts, then decide for yourself--- that is critical
thinking. Remember in the popular presentation of this mythology, Narvi is
a son of Loki, and the phrase "nipt Nera," and its variations ("Narvi's
kinswoman") is taken to mean Loki's daughter whom Snorri calls Hel. As in
the Elder Edda, Hel is conceived of as death personified.
>From Viktor Rydberg's Teutonic Mythology (translator Rasmus B. Anderson,
with slight revisions and commentary by W. Reaves) excerpts from chapters
84-86, which occur within a greater treatise on the underworld and its
inhabitants in general:
"The following lines in Sigrdrifumal (str. 3, 4) sound like a reverberation
from the lost liturgic hymns of our heathendom.
Heill dagr! Hail Dag!
Heilir dags synir! Hail Dag's sons!
Heil nótt ok nipt! Hail Nat and "nipt"!
Óreiðum augum With benevolant eyes
lítið okkr Þinig Look down upon us
ok gefið sitjöndum sigr! And give victory to the sitting!
Heilir æsir Hail Æsir!
Heilar asynjor Hail Asynjes!
Heil sia in fiolnyta fold! Hail bounteous earth!
Of the Germans in the first century after Christ, Tacitus writes (Germ. 3)
"They do not, as we, compute time by days, but by nights; night seems to
lead the day." This was applicable to the Scandinavians as far down as a
thousand years later. Time was computed by nights not by days, and in the
phrases from heathen times "nótt of dagr," "nótt med degi bœdi um nœtr ok
um daga," night is named before day. Linguistic usage and mythology are
here intimately associated with each another. According to Vafthrudnirsmal
25 and Gylfaginning 10, Nat bore with Delling the son Dag, with whom she
divided the administration of the 24 hours. Delling is the elf of the
morning redness. The symbolism of Nature is here distinct, as in all
theogonies.
Through other divinities, Naglfari and Ónarr (Anarr, Aunarr), Nat is the
mother with the former of Unnr, also called Audr, with the latter of the
goddess Jord, Odin's wife. Unnr means "wave", Audr means "rich." It has
been shown elsewhere that Unnr-Audr is identical with Njord, the lord of
wealth and commerce, who in the latter capacity became the protector of
navigators, and to whom sacrifices were offered for a prosperous voyage.
Gods of all clans-- Asas, Vans, and Elves ---are thus akin to Nat and
descended from her.
Nat herself is the daughter of a being whose name has many forms.
Naurr, Nörr (dative Naurvi, Nörvi, Nott var Naurvi borin--Vafth. 25; Nott,
Naurvi kenda --Alvism, 29)
Narfi, Narvi (niderfi Narfa --Egil Skallagr., 56, 2; Gylfag. 10)
Norvi, Nörvi (Gylf. 10; kund Nörva --Forspallsljod 7)
Njörfi, Njörvi (Gylf. 10; Njörva nipt ---Sonnatorrek)
Nori (Gylf. 10)
Nari (Höfudl., 10)
Neri (Helgi Hund., 1)
All these variations are derived from the the same appellation, related to
the ON verb njörva, the OE nearwian meaning "the one that binds," "the one
who applies tight-fitting bonds."
Simply the circumstance that Narvi is Nat's father proves that he must have
occupied one of the more conspicuous positions in the Teutonic cosmology.
In all cosmologies and theogonies, Night is one of the oldest beings, older
than light, without which it cannot be conceived. Light is kindled in the
darkness, thus foreboding an important epoch in the development of the
world out of chaos. The being who is night's father must therefore be
counted among the oldest in the cosmology. The personified representatives
of water and earth, like the daylight itself, are the children of his
daughter.
What Gylfaginning tells of Narvi is that he was of giant birth, and the
first to have inhabited Jotunheim (norvi eda Narfi het jotun, er bygdi
fyrst Jotunheima--- Gylf. 10) In regard to this, we must remember that, in
Gylfaginning and in the traditions of the Icelandic sagas, the lower world
is embraced in the term Jotunheim, and this for mythical reasons, since
Niflheim is inhabited by rime-thurses and giants <>, and since the regions of bliss are governed by Mimir and the
norns, who also are of giant descent. As father of the lower world-dis Nat,
Narvi himself belongs to that group of powers, with which the mythology
populated the lower world. The upper Jotunheim did not exist before a later
epoch of the cosmogonic development. It was created simulataneously with
Midgard by Odin and his brothers (Gylf.)
<>
In a strophe by Egil Skallagrimson (ch. 56), poetry, or the source of
poetry, is called "niderfi Narfa," "the inheritance left by Narvi to his
descendants." As is well known, Mimir's fountain is the source of poetry.
The expression indicates that the first inhabitant of the lower world,
Narvi, also presided over the precious fountain of wisdom and inspiration,
and that he died and left it to his descendants as an inheritance.
Finally, we learn that Narvi was a near kinsman to Urd and her sisters.
This appears from the following passages:
(a) Helgi Hundingsbane (1, 3, ff) When Helgi was born, Norns came in the
night to the abode of his parents, twisted the threads of fate, stretched
them from east to west, and fastened them beneath the hall of the moon.
"Nipt nera" cast one of these threads to the north and bade it hold
forever. It is manifest that by "Neri's (Narvi's) kinswoman" is meant one
of the norns present.
(b) Sonnatorrek str. 24. The skald Egil Skallagrimson, weary of life,
closes the poem by saying that he sees the dis of death standing on the
ness (Digra-ness) near the gravemound, which conceals the dust of his
father and his sons, and which is soon to receive him:
Tveggja bága Njörva nipt The kinswoman of Njorvi/The Binder of Odin's
(Tveggi's) foes
a nesi stendr stands on the ness
Skal ek thó gladr Then shall I be glad,
med gódan vilja with good-will,
ok úhryggr and without remorse
Heljar bida wait for Hel
It goes without saying that the skald means a dis of death, Urd or one of
her messengers, with the words "The kinswoman of Njorvi of Odin's foes"
whom he, with the eye of presentiment, sees standing on the family
gravemound on Digraness. She is not to stay there, but is to continue her
way to his hall, to bring him to the gravemound. He awaits her coming with
gladness, and as the last line shows, she whose arrival he awaits is Hel,
the goddess of death or fate. It has already been demonstrated that Hel in
the heathen records is always identical with Urd.
<>
Njorvi here is used both as a proper and a common noun. "The kinswoman of
the Njorvi of Odin's foes," means "the kinswoman of the binder of Odin's
foes." Odin's foe Fenrir was bound with an excellent chain smithied in the
lower world (dwarfs from Svartalfheim --Gylf. 37), and as shall be shown
elsewhere, there was more than one foe of Odin who is bound by Narvi's
chains <>
(c) Hofudlausn str. 10. Egil Skallagrimsson celebrates in song a victory
won by Erik Bloodaxe and says of the battle-field that there "trad nipt
Nara nàttverd ara," "Nari's kinswoman trampled upon the supper of eagles,"
(that is to say upon the bodies of the fallen warriors). The psychopomps of
disease and old-age have nothing to do on a battlefield. Thither come the
valkyries to the elect. "Nipt Nara" must therefore be a valkyrie, whose
horse tramples upon the heaps of dead bodies; and as Egil refers to a
single one of these, he doubtless has had the most representative, the most
important one in mind. That one is Skuld, Urd's sister, and thus a "nipt
Nara" herself, like Urd. <>
(d) Ynglingatal (Ynglingasaga, ch. 20). Of King Dygvi, who died from
disease,
it is said that "jódis Narva (jódis Nara) chose him. The right to choose
belongs to the norns alone. "Jódis, a word doubtless produced by a vowel
change from the Old Germanic "idis," has already in olden times been
interpreted partly as horse-dis (from jór, horse), partly as the dis of
one's kin (from jod, child,
offspring). In this case, the skald has taken advantage of both
significations. He calls the death-dis (Hel-Urd) "ulfs ok Narva jódis," the
wolf's horse-dis and Narvi's kin-dis. In regard to the former
signification, it should be remembered that the wolf is horse for all
giantesses, the honoured norns not excepted. Cp. (compare) "grey norna" as
a paraphrase for wolf."
Thus what our mythic record tells us about Narvi is:
(a) He is one of the oldest beings of the theogony, older than the upper
part of the world created by Bur's sons.
(b) He is of giant descent
(c) He is father of Nat, father-in-law of Naglfari, Onnar, and Delling, the
elf of the rosy dawn; and he is the father of Dag's mother, of Unnr, and of
the goddesses Jord, who becomes Odin's wife and Thor's mother. Bonds of
kinship thus connect him with the Asas and gods of all other ranks.
(d) He is near akin to the dis of fate and death, Urd, and her sisters. The
word "nipt," with which Urd's relation to him is indicated, may mean
sister, daughter, and even sister's daughter, and consequently does not
state which particualr one of these she is. It seems upon the whole to have
been applied well-nigh exclusively in regard to mythic persons, and
particularly in regard to Urd and her sisters, so that it almost acquired
the meaning of dis or norn. This is evident from Skaldskaparsmal, ch. 75:
Nornir heita thœr er naud skapa; Nipt ok Dis nú eru taldar, and from the
expression Heil Nótt ok Nipt in the above cited strophe from Sigrdrifumal.
There is every reason for assuming that the Nipt, which is here used as a
proper noun, in this sense means the dis of fate (Urd) as a kinswoman of
Nat. The common interpretation of "heil Nótt ok Nipt," is "hail Nat and her
daughter," and by her daughter is meant the goddess Jord; but this
interpretation is, as Sophus Bugge has shown, less probable, because the
goddess Jord immediately below gets her special greeting in the words: heil
sia in fiolnyta Fold!, Hail the bounteous Earth!
(e) As the father of Nat, living in Mimir's realm, and kinsman of Urd, who
with Mimir divides the dominion over the lower world, Narvi is himself a
being of the lower world and the oldest subterranean being; the first one
who resided in Jotunheim.
(f) He presided over the subterranean fountain of wisdom and inspiration,
that is to say Mimir's fountain.
(g) He was Odin's friend and binder of his foes <>
(h) He died and left his fountain as an inheritance to his descendants.
As our investigation progresses, it will be found that all these facts
concerning the name Narvi apply to Mimir, that "he who thinks" (Mimir) and
"he who binds" (Narvi) are the same person. Already these circumstances
(a-h above)...point definitely to Narvi and Mimir's identity. Thus the
Teutonic theogony has made Thought the older kinsman of Fate, who through
Night bears Day to the world. The people of antiquity made their first
steps toward a philosophical view of the world in their theogony."
End of Part I:
The investigation will continue with a look into Snorri's use of the name
Narvi as the name of one or both of Loki's sons (he does both) and how the
name of Odin's son Vali came to be confounded with the name of one of
Loki's sons (Hint: Voluspa 34 which contains the phrase "Vàli vigbönd"
holds the key.)
As always, please feel free to comment! Wassail~William Reaves
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